on the window focus swapping, is that why to use Vidfx you have to click once first to 'focus' the window on the videofx tile, or am i doing something wrong?
No. It sounds like you're using DxNothing and putting your Video FX Viewers in that, right? You have to click to first focus the DxNothing window because in your Window Layout you have not ticked the "Focus follows mouse" box

... now back to your regularly scheduled riff raff.